Confusion
by Kanna37
Summary: Kagome's having an identity crisis. Who is she, really? Inuyasha knows who she is, though, Miroku insists, and had long ago chosen who he really wanted to stay with. After all, he may go to Kikyou, but he always returns and stays with her. And really, aren't actions supposed to speak louder than words? A bit of angst, humor and romance. Old story never published before.


**Confusion**

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Inuyasha.

~*o*~

Miroku's eyes narrowed a bit as they landed on Kagome, who was sitting with her back to the group atop a small rise and staring into the sky quietly.

It had been a few weeks since Kikyou had finally passed on, and Kagome almost seemed more grieved than Inuyasha did.

But he wasn't a monk for nothing – he was a very clear-sighted individual, and it was easy to see that Kagome was also very confused. With a sigh, he glanced down at Sango, who was seated next to him and also watching Kagome with concern, and said, "I think that perhaps she needs to talk. I feel as though Amida is encouraging me to be the one to reach out to her, Sango."

His intended met his gaze solemnly and nodded. "Hai... when you're thinking of things other than perversion-" here, she rolled her eyes, "-you actually do have much wisdom to share. I agree... you should talk to her. I hate to see her like this."

He stared into the fire as he answered her. "Kagome-sama has much to deal with. I must admit, I do not envy her the path the kami have laid before her. To be faced with your last life, and to have to watch and relive the tragedy that was that life, would be emotionally exhausting, do you not think? And then-" he glanced behind him in the opposite direction where Inuyasha was slouched in a tree at the very edge of the campsite, "-to be faced with the love of your past, all the while loving him again? No... I do not envy Kagome-sama her path. I believe in her, however – if there is a person capable of finding her way through such confusion and pain, it is her. But I would be honored to help her in any way that I can, and that is why I feel the need to speak to her."

It was silent for a moment, no sound save for the popping of the fire, and the breeze rustling the trees, and then Sango stirred from her thoughts, and agreed. "I've never really thought about it that way – I was always too busy trying to push into Inuyasha's stubborn mind that Kagome was not Kikyou, because I could never be completely sure that he could see them as two separate people. And the rest of the time, I will admit, I was focused on my own tragedies, my people, and my brother, and my vengeance for them. But... you are right," she breathed. "I also... would not wish to bear this burden. I agree that Kagome is strong enough to do so, though I wish she did not have to."

"I, too, wish that this had not burdened her. But I will do what I can to ease her spirit, Sango," he finished, laying a hand to her shoulder and smiling softly as he stood.

Sango only smiled back at him, her eyes knowing as he walked up the small hill to sit near their dearest friend on the small deadfall she had taken over as her own.

~*o*~

Miroku reached Kagome's side and sat down, but said nothing for a time, waiting for her to speak first. He couldn't exactly say anything until he knew where her thoughts lay.

"Life is so confusing, Miroku-sama. How do we know who we really are?" she asked finally, her voice and manner subdued, weary.

He took his time to really ponder her question. It was a very good one, after all – but one he couldn't automatically understand, since he had no direct knowledge of any of his past lives, the only thing he felt in this moment was that he was _Miroku_.

But her words made him think beyond the here and now, and he could not deny that the very thought led to confusion and even discomfort – for if he was not really Miroku, then who was he?

After a few minutes, he nodded at her, his eyes understanding. "That is a good question. I will admit, thinking on it makes me uneasy, and less certain of the answer than I thought I would be. Am I Miroku – or someone else? How do all my previous incarnations and even my future ones play into who I am? It is... confusing."

A quiet sigh met his ears. "There have been so many times... times I would see Inuyasha and Kikyou together, and it was so strange. I would feel an echo within me – a distant memory like deja vu, and I knew that part of me remembered that instant of her life. But then part of me would only be angry, or jealous, because he was with someone else. It's so confusing to feel as though I'm two people, but not. And when she... died again, I could actually feel the memories inside me of her sadness, and her relief. All I can do is cry whenever I think about it, because it hurts – her life was cut short, and my soul still grieves for that. For all that was lost - her sadness, her pain, and her memories of loving Inuyasha."

He met her gaze, intrigued despite himself. "So... your memories of her life, of being Kikyou, have awakened within you?" he asked.

She shook her head, then looked away, back up into the sky. "Not..._ really. _Not memories, per se. It's more of a feeling. I get a few flashes of things, mostly since she passed away again. It's... pain. That's all. My soul remembers, and it's crying because of the pain that she experienced in her lifetime. She didn't have much happiness." Her hand rose to clutch at her heart as she looked down at the ground. "The hard thing is, I can suddenly feel how old this soul is... it feels tired sometimes – so ancient. I can feel an echo of a great deal of unhappiness that lays in its past. My past."

Once again, Miroku was rendered speechless as his mind took over, and he looked within himself to see if he could also feel that echo she was speaking of. And for just a moment, he did – he felt a sensation of immense spans of time and a babble of many voices. The voices of who he once had been. Immediately, his mind shuddered back, and he pulled his thoughts away from such things, feeling uneasy and very uncomfortable.

With a startled inhale, he nodded to himself in understanding and began a chant to Amida, using it to center himself once more. Slowly, those thoughts faded away, and he was once more only Miroku.

"I... understand what it is you speak of," he said softly, and when Kagome looked over and met his solemn gaze, she could see that he did, indeed, understand. "Do you... get the sense that Kikyou also felt as you do – about your advent into _her _life?"

It was silent for a moment, and then... "Yes. It's still just feelings and not really much actual memory, but... later, towards the end of things for her. I think, it was more after I healed her of Naraku's miasma that time. She began to wonder... when we were speaking just before Inuyasha came and took her to spend her last moments together, for one moment, I could really feel it. Both of us were like one person. There was no division, there were no different incarnations or five hundred years between us. It was very strange, and when I felt her pass again, the pain was incredible. I felt like _I_ had died. I _still_ feel like a part of me is dead."

"And yet...?" Miroku prodded, knowing there was something else there.

She sighed, and looked away again, closing her eyes. "And yet... there was still jealousy. Jealousy that he was holding her, that they kissed. But... I could feel it, from her, too. She was jealous that she was dying, and I would still be by his side. And the stupid thing is, we both also felt like we were being jealous of... ourselves. It's really hard to separate myself out from her now. And that scares me, because I was always so adamant that I was Kagome, and not Kikyou. She was just as adamant that she was Kikyou, and not Kagome. But now the line between she and I is really blurred..." she trailed off uncomfortably.

"I want you to search all these feelings you have of Kikyou's memory within your soul." He held a gentle expression as she opened her eyes and turned back to look at him with a look of confusion. "The crux of your confusion is really one thing, is it not, Kagome-sama? You wonder if your love for Inuyasha is tied to her, and not yourself."

She flushed and her jaw dropped as she stared at him in consternation. "I..." her voice faded away and she blinked several times. It was clear he had shocked her.

"Come, Kagome-sama. Search out your memories of her feelings for Inuyasha, and then compare them to your own. Are they the same?" he asked leadingly, knowing he was right in this – she would find that her feelings, and Kikyou's feelings, were different. It was something she needed to understand, to show that, while she and Kikyou would always be connected, they were different people, with different feelings when it came down to it.

Looking _very _uncomfortable, Kagome did as he asked, and searched herself openly and honestly. It was difficult, and she was afraid of what she would find. But it had to be done – that much, even she could see.

But as she searched through herself, opening her soul to its past, she began to see the differences in how Kikyou had felt, versus how she felt. And there were differences – a lot of them. Some had to do with how each of them had been raised. After all, there were five hundred years and priestess training between them, and that was going to make environmental differences in how they each reacted to things. On the other hand, some just had to do with differences in them, _personally. _Kagome's heart was just more open than Kikyou's had been – even above and beyond what influence their environments had on them.

And the memory of Kikyou's feelings towards Inuyasha within her, were different, than what _she_ felt for the hanyou.

In Kikyou's heart, there had been a division. Yes, she had love in her heart for Inuyasha, but there was a part of herself she held back. A part of herself that was afraid of his differences. That part did not trust him. And it wasn't even so much that he was a half demon – she would have felt the same, Kagome realized, even if he had been fully human, but of a different race of humans. Kikyou, like most, feared what she didn't understand – and that reaction would have been the same if, say, Inuyasha had been from another country and culture than she herself, was.

In fact, it would almost have been worse in some ways, because even though he was hanyou, at least he was still Japanese. She understood him as a hanyou better than she would have as another race of human.

Kagome, on the other hand, couldn't care at all what Inuyasha was, as long as he remained _Inuyasha. _To her, _what_ didn't matter – it was _who_ he was that she loved. And her trust in him was unfaltering – she knew he would never hurt her. She had no fear of him at all.

Because of that, her feelings for the hanyou, were much, much stronger than Kikyou's had ever been. All of what made her _Kagome_ loved him and always would. Whether he became human, youkai, or stayed hanyou, she would still love him.

_My feelings are mine, and Kikyou's were Kikyou's. And that means that even though we shared the same soul, we are different, because if we weren't, then I would feel the same way for Inuyasha that she did, and harbor the same mistrust, too. And I don't. But though we're not the same, I still feel pain for her death, and for her sad life... and because I couldn't save her. I think that I always will..._

She sighed, and chuckled a little. "I suppose... I have to feel grateful that I was allowed to love him in two lifetimes. And in a way, I guess that knowledge is comforting. But... how do I know that _Inuyasha_ knows the differences between Kikyou and I, when I couldn't even see them anymore?"

"Do you not think that he shows it every day, Kagome-sama? If he mistook you for Kikyou-sama, would he not treat you the same way he treated her? Have you never noticed," he asked, casting her a knowing look, "that with Kikyou-sama, he was very formal and reserved? But we all know that this way of being is not really Inuyasha. With Kikyou-sama, he felt he had to try to be someone _other_ than who he really is. Now, when he is with _you_, he is different. He is himself. He does not feel constrained to try to be someone else, because he knows that you accept him for who he is – which Kikyou-sama did not fully do. And there is this, as well... he may have gone to see Kikyou-sama at times, but he did not _stay_ with her. He always came back to stay with _you_. In his mind, there is Kikyou, and there is Kagome. Two people... not one, and he has made his choice of who he wants to stay with openly, though he hasn't said it in words. His actions, I think, have spoken _louder_ than mere words, don't you agree?"

To Kagome's shame, it was clear that Miroku was trying to make a very pointed observation – one he was intimating in his tone that she _should_ have been able to see for herself. And he was right, she had to admit, after a moment of thought...

"You know, I really hate it when you're right, Miroku-sama," she said finally, her tone much lighter and teasing. "It sets such a bad precedent when the resident lecher is smarter than the miko."

He chuckled, resting his staff on his lap as he smirked over at her. He lifted a hand towards her as if he was going to grope her, but before he could pull back and say, "Just kidding!" he was accosted and slammed over the head by an irate inuhanyou that happened to come galloping up behind them in order to stop any opportunistic groping.

"Damn hentai – what've I told you 'bout keeping your hands off Kagome?" he shouted, pounding another knot into the monk's now ringing head.

Laughing for the first time in weeks, Kagome shook her head and caught Inuyasha's sleeve in her hand. "Inuyasha! Stop... I think he was just joking. If you haven't noticed, he hasn't groped anyone besides Sango in months. He was trying to cheer me up," she said to the still scowling hanyou.

"Putting his hands on you in inappropriate places was supposed to cheer you up?" he snarled, so openly and obviously jealous that Kagome was stunned and left wordless at his response. She blinked rapidly at him, trying to figure out what to say.

"Inuyasha," she finally breathed in wonder, her eyes glowing up at him as he knocked Miroku away from her and took the monk's seat. His sullen expression lightened as he blushed at the expression on her face, and he looked away after a moment, unable to endure the intensity of the look in her eyes.

"Keh," he said weakly after a moment. "Monk should know better than 'joking' like that. I warned the bouzo months ago never to touch you that way again – or _else._" Slowly, he looked back up at her, this time his expression intense as gold eyes sparked at her in the low starlight. "I won't let anyone else touch you like that, Ka-go-me. _No one._"

"You should just be happy he never tried to grope Kikyou like that," she finally sighed, completely missing the implications of what he'd just said and looking away; despite her recent conversation with the monk, it was still hard to believe that he really _had_ chosen her long ago as Miroku insisted. She'd just become so _resigned_ to her feelings never being returned...

She was in no way prepared for his response. It was silent for a stunned moment... and then Inuyasha burst into laughter so hard he almost fell over. Shocked, she stared at him, not certain what to make of his reaction.

After a couple of moments of almost hysterical laughter – which was something she'd almost never seen from the hanyou – he stuttered out, "I woulda _loved_ to be a fly on the wall to see that! She probably woulda pinned _him_ to a tree!" He snorted with laughter again, then drew in a deep breath to try to control it and finished, "Kikyou wasn't the kinda woman you really had such thoughts about, and I think that's totally proved by the fact that Miroku never _did_ try to grope her – hell, he's tried to grope just about everyone else. If even the _letch_ couldn't act his normal hentai self around her, well, you should be able to see my point. Kikyou was just someone that was always outta reach for things like that," he snickered. "She was that way even when she was alive."

Bewildered, Kagome stared warily at him, her eyes narrowing. "When someone mentions him groping Kikyou, you laugh like a crazy man, but when he tries to grope _me_, you get pissed? How's _that_ work?" She didn't know whether to be insulted by the whole thing or complimented.

That stopped his snickering and he scowled down at the monk, who was just now beginning to groan and wake up from his pounding. Then he glanced back down the little hill to Sango, who was watching the goings on with a knowing expression, before folding his arms in his sleeves and tilting his nose in the air.

"Feh. Kikyou ain't you. Sure, I swore to protect Kikyou - from _Naraku_ – but that was it, and the rest of her life was her life. It wasn't none of my business. Now, _you_, I just swore to protect - from everything, and that includes monks who can't keep their hands to themselves," he growled warningly, glaring down at a groggy Miroku.

Shaking her head, a bizarre cross between her earlier subdued and weary expression and her more recent amused expression settled on her features, and she sighed. "I guess you really _do_ see me and Kikyou differently," she said softly as she stood and reached down a hand to help Miroku to his feet. "Sorry, Miroku. Are you sure you're okay?" she asked the man who was now swaying slightly as he regained his feet.

"I suppose I will live, Kagome-sama," he replied, scrunching his face up in discomfort as he gently felt the knots on his head. "I shouldn't have provoked our friend's rather uncertain temper where you are concerned."

"No, you shouldn't have, bouzo," the hanyou grumbled as he also stood, falling into step at Kagome's side as she moved back down the hill towards the fire and their other companions. "And my temper ain't uncertain – it's _certain_ that if you touch Kagome, I'm gonna pound you."

Kagome just shook her head as she caught Sango's amused look; too tired to worry about being graceful, she just folded herself into a vaguely sitting sort of position near the fire and allowed it to warm her. From the serious upset she'd been feeling earlier – what she'd been feeling since Kikyou's death – to the crazy/silly events of moments ago, the emotional extremes were just too much for her exhausted mind to really process, so she finally just pushed it all aside and decided to worry about it tomorrow.

But as Inuyasha sat down behind her and then gently pulled her into his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around her and swathing her protectively in his warm fire rat sleeves; it was something he'd rarely done, showing such affection before others, and the vague thought that maybe she wouldn't have to worry about it at all anymore passed through. She smiled, just a little.

"So what are you protecting me from now, Inuyasha?" she asked softly as Miroku and Sango fell into their own quiet conversation. "The fire?"

"Everything, like I said earlier. If I've got you right here, then I know that ain't nothin' gonna hurt you. Problem with it?"

She shook her head. "No. I've always been safest in your arms. I just was never sure if it was me, or the part of me that once was Kikyou that you were trying so hard to keep safe, that's all."

"Keh. Stupid," he rumbled against her ear, the vibrations making her shiver. "You ain't nothin' like Kikyou at all, and I'm grateful for it." He shuddered slightly; Kagome looked up at him to see an odd, rather guilty look on his face. "You wanna know something?" he asked slowly, almost as if he really wasn't sure he wanted anyone to know what he was about to say. When she nodded, he said, to her complete shock, "If you _had_ reminded me so much of Kikyou in the beginning, I would have made you take these beads off, and then I would have killed you."

She blinked, totally stunned at his confession. "How? I mean, how would you have made me take the beads off?" she asked, not even able to understand what he was saying. All of this time, she had thought... and yet, he had never seen her as Kikyou – _or_ her shadow?

He looked down at her and rolled his eyes. "Come on, Kagome. Think about it. You may have some control over me with this thing, but its only because _I __let__ you._ If I really wanted these things off back then, all I would have had to do was grab someone and threaten to kill them if you didn't take them off, and you wouldn't have had a choice," he said, to her shocked surprise. "Even though I wouldn't really have done it, 'cause even as bad as I was back then, I wouldn't have just killed some person that hadn't done nothing to me, still... you wouldn't have risked that chance, and you know it. Beads off, story over," he shrugged.

Kagome had never thought of it like that, but he was right. He _could_ have stopped her right there. But... kill her for being like Kikyou? "Why would you have killed me if I reminded you too much of her? I thought... I thought you _loved _her."

Sighing, he shrugged again as he looked down guiltily. "Remember, back then I thought she'd lied to me and betrayed me. I wanted to kill her for fooling me like that. And after I found out what really happened, that it was Naraku, I felt really guilty for that desire to kill her. That's actually why I agreed to go to hell with her at first... not because I still loved her, but because I felt guilty. The truth is..." here, he actually looked ashamed, "even after finding out the truth of what happened, I couldn't bring myself to remember the love I thought I'd had for her. All I could remember was that even though she hadn't actually betrayed me as I'd thought, she'd still betrayed me, the same as I'd betrayed her. We'd betrayed each others trusts, by not trusting where we should have. And so, like I said, I just felt guilty about wanting to kill her at first, and that's really what's held me to her all this time. That doesn't mean, though, that I don't grieve for her death – again - you know, 'cause I do. Dying once is bad enough; no one should have to do it twice."

Kagome couldn't figure out what to say to all that. "Oh." She was amazed to hear his reasoning for everything; it was completely different than she'd ever thought. But it did bring up a good question... "Uhm, Inuyasha?" When he tilted his head down at her and his adorable ears in her direction, she continued. "If... if you could have gotten me to take the beads off... why didn't you?"

She watched, fascinated, as he flushed and his eyes darted away nervously. "Keh... why do you think?" After a moment of fidgeting, he finally sighed again and looked back up at her. "There was more than one reason. I mean, you _were_ kinda obnoxious and bossy back then," he said with a bit of a grin as she glared up at him, "but... you weren't like Kikyou at all, and for a while there, I didn't believe Kaede's idea you were her reincarnation. I wanted to get to know you. I was actually kinda mad when I found out you really _were _her reincarnation, to tell the truth." He looked into her fascinated but unenlightened eyes, and finally burst aggravatedly out with, "If you can't figure it out then I ain't sayin' nothing more, stupid." He folded his arms and turned his nose up, even with her sitting in his lap, and after a moment, Kagome giggled at his familiar pose.

She started a little, though, when Miroku's amused voice popped up, reddening at his words but unable to help the laughter that broke out of her at Inuyasha's reaction _to_ those words.

"Come now, Kagome-sama! Inuyasha has as much as declared that he loves you, and you are missing the point! You know him better than anyone, and know that he cannot get those exact words through his throat, since they won't fit through that narro-" he broke off and jumped up to take off running as a growling Inuyasha gently set Kagome aside and stood to chase him off into the trees, a decidedly bad decision for a human who cannot see in the dark, against a hanyou who _can._

A blushing but chuckling Kagome was left with an also laughing Sango in the camp listening to the monk's squeals of pain as said hanyou caught him up and began pounding him again.

After a few minutes of laughter accompanied by whines from the now incapacitated monk, Sango looked at her friend and said gently, "You know he's right, though, Kagome. Inuyasha probably won't say the words, but... look at it this way. I'm his friend, ne? If you were also just a friend in his eyes, he would not get jealous of any male attention you were to get. He doesn't get jealous when Miroku flirts with me, does he? But he does when he flirts with _you_. And if you hadn't noticed, he might have chased Miroku out of here just now for what he said, but he _didn't_ deny his words."

Still blushing, Kagome eyed her friend, not sure whether to be thankful for her very true words, or upset at the eavesdropping. "Just how long were you two listening, anyway?" she asked.

Sango chuckled at her. "Come on, Kagome, you both were right here in front of us. It's not as if we can turn off our ears."

Looking contrite at that answer, because it was true, she nodded, then sighed. "Well, I guess I'm just glad Shippo's with Kaede, or we'd never hear the end of the fight all this would have caused between those two, what with Shippo's constant teasing."

The guys returned to the camp just then, Miroku limping and sniveling as Inuyasha looked smug – though he blushed fifty shades of red when he met Kagome's eyes. Still, he came back and sat down in his previous position, and slowly reached out to pick her back up and put her back in his lap – as if to give her time to pull away. Noting very quickly that he still wasn't denying Miroku's words, she let him pick her up, and snuggled deeply into him as he wrapped his arms around her. She sighed contentedly, and it wasn't long before she was falling asleep, more comfortable and happy than she'd been in months. (He didn't know it, because she never said, but he made her soul feel young again, when it had felt so old and tired before. He'd healed her almost as much as she'd healed him, if the truth were ever to be known.)

Just before she drifted off, she murmured something that made Inuyasha's heart beat like mad and a huge smile inwardly light his entire soul up with happiness he had _never_ felt before.

_I love you, too, Inuyasha, _replayed in his head all night long, even long after he fell asleep in the same position he was in when she'd fallen asleep, and that was the first time they slept together...

Though it was most certainly not the last, because he had finally made Kagome understand that he had never seen her as Kikyou, even when _she_ was confused and couldn't separate herself out from the older woman.

He had always seen her as Kagome, and _no one else._

She was the woman he... well, everyone knew what word was supposed to go there, even if he couldn't quite get it out. He would someday, anyway – but never when there were any eavesdroppers around! _Especially_ ones named Miroku...

_Owari_

~*o*~

A/N: I wrote this a long time ago, and forgot it was sitting in the folder marked Various – it's where I put all my one-shots. So I dug it out the other day when I came across it, polished up a few mistakes while leaving the story itself alone, and here it is. I hope people can enjoy it for what it is... vintage Inu/Kags from a sap that just loves Inuyasha and Kagome, and their difficult and complicated relationship.

Amber


End file.
